Alzheimer’s Disease Preventable Through Lifestyle Factors

This quote was from the paper I linked in the prior post. It’s comforting, isn’t it? That Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia are within our control to prevent and possibly to turn around. But it also presents a challenge. Public health policies affect things like access to healthy food, safe places to exercise, the structure of work, clean air and water, etc. We, as a society, as a country, are deemphasizing public health and emphasizing personal choice. That places the burden of health on the individual, giving individuals with the most money and resources the best chance for health. We need to stay focused on public health if we are to protect the majority and not a privileged few.

Taken together, the aetiology of AD appears not to be different from any other current “culture-borne diseases”, which are caused by well-known deficits in physical exercise, intake of healthy food, intermittent fasting and social activity. The AD epidemic might simply be due to the development of a highly sedentary, overindulgent and occupation-specific lifestyle that largely eliminates extended family bonds and time to relax. In order to prevent and treat AD, we might need a better understanding of how the true causative risk factors interact. But, much more, we need to become more open-minded: We should stop regarding AD as a natural (genetic) disease or a causal consequence of aging and begin to accept that AD is caused by environmental factors and behavioural deficiencies (i.e. the well known risk factors). Consequently, AD should be preventable and, in the early stages of the disease, might even get cured, provided that we (re-) assume a lifestyle that satisfies all essential requirements of our brain, which result from our human’s particular evolutionary life history.